This invention relates to an improved slide apparatus and method. In particular, this invention relates to a cabled tarp water slide.
A wide variety of slides, both with and without water, have been known in the art for some time. Much of the art is directed to slides for use in escaping buildings in the event of fire. Avery, U.S. Pat. No. 284,994; Thoresen, U.S. Pat. No. 459,319; Erwin, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 920,296; and Erwin, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 952,315, are exemplary of the state of the art for fire slides. More recent escape devices are exemplified by Okuma, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,994,366.
Still further, the art includes slides used for amusement. The Auperl Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 1,520,217 discloses an amusement slide designed to pull a rowboat like device up an incline and then allow the rowboat to slide down a cable guide into a lake, river, or other body of water. The Ridgway Patent, U.S. Pat. No. 2,705,144, discloses an amusement slide wherein a person enters a shelter and stands on a trap door. The trap door is sprung and the user drops through the hole and onto an elongated sheet of steel. The steel is surrounded by canvas sides to prevent a person from sliding off the steel sheet during the journey along the length of the landing element. The European patent to Franzetti, EP0110843 discloses a water slide comprised of a continuous reinforced plastic web of soft polyvinyl chloride connected to tubular PVC posts which are subsequently connected to a number of support posts. The supports posts and the supports for the polyvinyl web are rigid and multi-pieced. In short, the prior art discloses slides which are expensive and time consuming to create and maintain.
A further drawback to the slides known in the art is that, in addition to being expensive to construct and maintain, they are not easily adaptable to use in primitive camp sites, in forests, and in natural settings without the disruption of the setting by the creation and installation of the supports and so forth. Still further, even the prior art slides which are somewhat easier to construct lack the features of the true amusement park ride in the nature of lifts, (i.e. jumps), and falls, (i.e. drops), throughout the length of the slide.
Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a slide which is easy to construct, inexpensive to maintain, and which includes at least one lift and one fall over the course of its length. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an improved slide which is easy and inexpensive to construct and maintain and which includes amusement park like features, such as lifts and falls.